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["Lynn Wigglesworth" <lynnw1366 AT hotmail.com>]

From: "Keith B" <bartermn AT epix.net>
> Yeah, I usually thin them good once and let them be. We had an early
> freeze with heavy snow a few years back and didn't harvest the carrots
> until January. I remember forking up big bunches of frozen dirt packed
> with baby carrots, perfect for pickling.

I tried Elliot Coleman's Candy Carrots this year. I planted in August, and
was a little (a lot) lax about weeding and thinning. I went out around
Thanksgiving to dig up a few...and was amazed to find huge carrots. They
were 4 or 5 times the size of 'normal' carrots, but were well formed and
still very tender and tasty (a few have started splitting since then).
I've never been able to grow sucessful carrots before, and now I've grown
super mutant carrots!

The details: The seed was Napoli from Johnny's seed. The ground had many
inches of composted manure dug in 3 years before. I dug it very deeply and
removed all the rocks in the spring and put in 2 crops of carrots...the
first didn't do much...radishes and a few (very few)bunches of normal
enough carrots, then I cleaned out the bed, used my broadfork to loosen
it, and planted the second crop of monster carrots...I fertilized a bit
with an organic all-purpose fertilizer and some kelp.

Lynn Wigglesworth
Peasant Farmer
Tioga County, PA